Confederacy of a Dunce - Bardejov - Nowy Sacz (Day 6:Poland

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

« Stara Lubovna - Bardejov (Day 5:Poland -... | Main | Nowy Sacz - Krakow (Day 7:Poland - Slova... »

Bardejov - Nowy Sacz (Day 6:Poland - Slovakia)

With four snoring gentlemen in one small room, it's no real surprise that we were up quite early. Our quality accommodation offered no breakfast (although it did have a somewhat rundown kitchen, which might have been useful if we'd have bothered to buy any foodstuffs besides Snickers bars and beer). No problem, we'd just find a restaurant in the town centre. Well, after walking into several different establishments, we were sorely disappointed: we were looking for something a little more substantial than coffee or beer (half of the customers were having coffee for breakfast, the other half pints of beer). Eventually we found ourselves at a sandwich shop, very much a Slovakian equivalent of Subway (I might note here that in our entire time in Slovakia we didn't see any of the ubiquitous American chains: no Subway, KFC, McDonalds, Starbucks, nor any of your familiar large retailers). I had a big-ol sandwich with an odd mix of the non-meaty things on offer: boiled egg, mushrooms, cheese, pickled peppers, cabbage/slaw, onions, tomato, mustard. We sat there, gobbling our sandwiches and wondering what happened to the concept of breakfast in Bardejov.

Our original misconception was that today's ride might be the most difficult of them all, but our more informed reinspection of the maps gave a much more pleasant impression: hilly but not mountainous. We set off north from Bardejov toward the Polish border. Or we would have, except that P. discovered one of the bolts on his rack had worked itself loose and disappeared. Fortunately there was a bike shop on the main square, and they gave him a suitable replacement bolt (for free!). And then we actually did set off. Once again the weather was perfect for riding; slightly chilly, sunny, with a light breeze. Hazy/misty off in the distance but which had dissipated by the time we reached it. Roads were quite empty, apart from the occasional Mercedes (unusual compared to the rest of the traffic we'd seen in Slovakia). The last Slovakian town we passed was Becherov, the only place that had a Cyrillic sign:

The early part of the ride was a 6-mile climb (250m) up to the border crossing; here's a shot of a couple of us getting ready to attack the steepest part of it:

Although both countries are part of the EU the crossing is quite a serious one. High fences, gates, numerous guards with guns, motorbikes, jeeps and so on. And very quiet in terms of traffic: only a couple of cars passed through while we loitered on the Slovakian side (spending our SKK at the border shop, which unfortunately offered only chocolate and alcohol). Our passports were closely inspected, but none of us did anything rash or silly and we were permitted to pass. The road surface was very nice and we cruised downhill for the next 12 miles or so (passed several times by border patrol people on the aforementioned motorbikes and jeeps). The countryside was quite scenic: nice rolling hills and fairly prosperous-looking farms.

We climbed another long uphill section, and discovered to our general displeasure that its downhill counterpart contained some of the worst road surfaces we'd faced so far: not so many large potholes but innumerable small holes, broken surfaces and all the other properties that make a speedy descent a truly bone-jarring process. Not only bone-jarring but bicycle-jarring as well: all of MJ's chainring bolts had become slightly loose (fortunately these are easily tightened). Far worse, we discovered that P's rear cassette had jiggled itself extremely loose. As we didn't have the exact tool designed to tighten it, we would be stopping every five miles or so to tighten it back down as best we could. One more climb and then it was downhill the rest of the way to Nowy Sacz. It's fairly big (pop. ~80,000) and we found ourselves riding along a quite busy highway to the city centre. There we stumbled across a very nice hotel just off the main square, the Panorama (overlooking the river valley):

The rooms were good, the staff were very helpful, and there was even a quite secure sort of cellar area where we could stash the bicycles. MJ and P set off to find a cycle shop where P's cassette could be properly tightened (after a small wild goose chase they did find a workshop, where all it took was a good turn with a long-handled cassette wrench), and HH and I went on a less difficult mission (finding a nice outdoor cafe where we could have a coffee and a beer and some snacks). Nowy Sacz seems to have some interesting sights but we were much more inclined to sit and relax. Once the "cassette mission" had been completed, we took a bit of a wander, stopping for a couple of Zywiec Porters at a very lovely art deco jazz bar.

Dinner was at a very nice (although deserted) basement restaurant ("Restauracja Kupiecka") specializing in traditional Polish food. The cassette-mission boys went for the "most traditional/typical" option, pork in a prune sauce with buckwheat grits. They weren't a fan of this dish at all. However both HH and I had extremely delicious food: mine was trout in a creamy sauce, HH's was a venison dish, rated as perhaps the best food on the trip. And then it was time for a short wander round the square before returning to the hotel. Some of us had to stop and pose for a picture with the Pope sculpture:

MJ (front), Pope (rear)

Distance ridden for the day: a very pleasant 50.9 miles
Time on the bikes for the day: 4:15 (moving time)
Moving average: 11.9mph
Maximum speed: 37.7mph.

It was a gradual-up-and-down day: